With a growing population, the number of developmentally disabled children grows. Additionally, the rates at which children have been diagnosed as developmentally disabled, and particularly diagnosed with autism spectrum disorders (ASD), have steadily increased. Individuals with developmental disabilities often have several challenges in common, including but not limited to speech and language impairments, cognitive deficits, social problems, behavioral problems, memory problems, attention deficits, and sensory processing dysfunction. The developmentally disabled population extends beyond those with ASD to include those with Down syndrome, cerebral palsy, Fragile X syndrome, and other disabilities which may involve sensory impairments. In addition, many individuals develop sensory deficits at later stages in life, from trauma, old age, or other neuropathy. More than eight million people over the age of five in the United States alone are hard of hearing. More than seven million are visually impaired. Sensory dysfunction can result from stroke, brain injury, cancer, and other ailments.
For individuals with sensory processing dysfunction any number of conditions such as: hypersensitivity or hyposensitivity with respect to senses of sight; hearing; touch; smell; taste; pain (nociception); balance (equilibrioception), spatial orientation, joint motion and acceleration (proprioception and kinesthesia); time; and temperature (thermoception) may pose significant challenges in simple daily tasks, particularly when such tasks involve new environments. Many take for granted the ability to visit a new place, walk in sunlight, cope with the general auditory din of a public location, interact with a pet, and so on, though these tasks may be particularly daunting for hypersensitive individuals. For the hyposensitive, difficulty hearing, feeling, seeing, or balancing presents a constant battle, forcing many to overcompensate for their deficits (e.g., aggressively bang an object simply to feel it), or exhaust themselves straining a particular sense. Many disabled individuals resort to self-stimulatory or “stereotypy” activity (e.g., echolalic or perseverative speech, repetitive body motions, etc.) as a mechanism to cope with or regulate sensory irregularities.